Positions and Rosters in College Recruiting Pt. 2

Woody Wingfield: Your Link to the Colleges

Players and parents LOVE to sift through college rosters and count how many players are at each position, as well as their age. Unfortunately, this isn’t very useful information when it comes to the college recruiting process. At best, it’s guess work.

For example, you may see that there are five shortstops on the roster and think to yourself, “Oh, well. I guess there’s no need.” Perhaps the coach recruits heavily up the middle? Or, more likely, those five shortstops play at multiple positions, or will be moving to other positions the next year. Guys that are recruited at one position don’t always stay there.

What you can and should look for when you’re skimming through rosters are things that don’t change: size of players, where they are from and where they played prior to coming to that school. You can usually find a pattern in the height and weight of players on the roster- some coaches like tall players, other show no preference. You can also get a feel for where coaches recruit from by looking at each player’s hometown. Finally, it’s useful to look at how many players were recruited out of high school, and how many were recruited from another school, 4-year or junior college.

This process is frustrating enough. Do yourself a favor, and don’t drive yourself crazy trying to get inside the coach’s head.

Woody serves as the Director of College Recruiting Operations, working with players and parents in the ACR, Exclusive and Exclusive BATS Programs. His role is to assist all families with questions they may have throughout the recruiting process. Woody is a graduate of the University of Virginia where he worked as an intern with the Cavalier Baseball Team.